Remembering Marcyliena Morgan - Keeper of the Hip Hop Archive at Harvard

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

Today, we're thinking about Marcyliena Morgan, a keeper extraordinaire, a linguistic anthropologist who founded and championed the Hip Hop Archive at Harvard.

Marcyliena Hazel Morgan was born in Chicago, May 8, 1950 and passed away September 28, 2025. We were fortunate to interview her in 2018 as part of the opening story in our NPR series The Keepers, about activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians. Keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep. Guardians of history large and small, protectors of the free flow of information and ideas. Individuals who take it upon themselves to preserve some part of our cultural heritage. Marcyliena Morgan was all that and more.

Our story delves into the the founding of the Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard by Dr. Morgan and Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to “facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture, scholarship and responsible leadership through Hiphop.”

You’ll hear from Professor Morgan, Professor Gates, Nas, Patrick Douthit aka 9th Wonder, an array of Harvard archivists and students studying at the archive as well as the records, music and voices being preserved there. We've also included more of our original interview with Dr. Morgan.

The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We're part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

Transcript

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0:00.0	RadioTopia. Welcome to the Kitchen Sisters present.
0:04.0	From PRX. We're The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson, and Nikki Silva.
0:09.0	This is Nikki of the Kitchen Sisters, and it's the Radiotopia Fall fundraiser, the network that makes the stories we produce possible.
0:19.0	The Kitchen Sisters tagline mantra has always been
0:22.9	building community through storytelling. And it seems more meaningful and urgent than ever before right now.
0:29.4	We need models and inspiration and hope. And the stories that all of the Radiotopia producers
0:35.7	produce help move us in that positive direction.
0:39.5	We've seen attacks on journalism and attacks on public media and art and museums and libraries,
0:45.2	all the things we care for, all the things that have supported us throughout the years.
0:50.5	Through thick and thin, Radiotopia and our community have supported our work.
0:56.0	So today we're asking you to contribute to Radiotopia.
0:59.3	It's a tax-deductible contribution because they're non-profit.
1:03.2	They're focused on putting revenue back into the hands of creators,
1:07.4	like the kitchen sisters, like the memory palace.
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1:17.7	Radiotopia.fm. By making a donation to Radiotopia, you're lifting all of us.
1:23.5	Donate today at Radiotopia.fm slash donate. Thanks so much. Your contribution goes very, very far.
1:37.7	Today we're thinking about Marcellina Morgan, a linguistic anthropologist who founded and championed the hip-hop archive at Harvard.
1:49.5	We were fortunate to interview her in 2018 as part of the opening story in our Keeper series
1:56.1	about activist, archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors, and historians, keepers
2:02.9	of the culture, and the cultures and collections they keep, protectors of the free flow of
	...

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